My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

“The Death of Seneca; the philosopher standing at centre with his
feet in a basin of water, supported by a disciple at left while another takes
down his last words at right, two others onlooking beyond at right; second
state with address of Galle; after Peter Paul Rubens”

Condition: excellent impression revealing very light wear to the
plate with margins (varying in size but approximately 1 cm) and laid upon a
support sheet. The sheet has minor nicks, abrasions mainly on the lower edge of
the margin but these issues are addressed by the conservation of the sheet on a
washi paper support and virtually invisible dot retouching.

I am selling this superbly executed, large and famous engraving for
the total cost of AU$221 (currently US$172.95/EUR146.72/GBP131.17 at the time
of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this 17th century masterwork
of engraving, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will
send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

This should be a dreadful scene in that it portrays Emperor Nero’s
childhood tutor and friend, the philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca—known better
by just his surname, Seneca—committing suicide by order of his former pupil
… but it really isn’t. Instead I see the scene like a crucifixion image of
Christ which is hideous in its depiction of an awful physical death but is in
fact a celebration of atonement and love. In the case of Seneca, the sacrifice
of his physical body is a celebratory exhibition of his free will against
oppression—or as Mary Beard (2014) explains in “How Stoical Was Seneca?": Seneca
offered this display of his death as “the only thing he had left, and the best:
‘the image of his own life,’ imago vitae suae.” (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/10/09/how-stoical-was-seneca/)

Of course, like all martyr’s deaths, the “real” circumstances are
far from spiritually transcendent. Seneca was an old man and when he slit his
veins his blood flowed too slowly and so he tried taking hemlock to help in his
plans for a glorious suicide. This too was ineffective and so he immersed
himself in a hot bath so that his blood would flow freely. Sadly, this ploy was
not successful either but the fumes from the hot bath did ultimately kill this
magnificent stoic.

Regarding this famous engraving by Voet, it too is not an
unproblematic illustration of Seneca’s suicide. As may be seen in the composite
image shown above, Voet’s engraving reproduces Ruben’s painting now in the Alte
Pinakothek, Munich, inv.no.305 (Rooses 812)—“with variations” as the BM curator
points out (see BM no.1841,0809.48). The origin of the image
does not end with Rubens. Rubens also visually cannibalised the image from the
pose of a Roman sculpture of an old fisherman (see the left image) which was in
turn a copy of an ancient Greek (Hellenistic) sculpture. Note that the “bath”
included in the Roman sculpture is a recent addition designed to give a
contemporary meaningful context to the old fisherman; it has nothing to do with
the original sculpture and its ancient context.